What It Took to Launch Revel Surf: Matt Gunn’s Big Reveal

The Wave Pull Mag podcast is made possible due to support from Wave Pull operators, technology providers, and the growing list of companies doing business in the surf part space. For commercial opportunities, reach out to us at [email protected]. Thank you and stay stoked. [Music] The previous sound montage is how I imagine MacGens brainlaster, just numbers, rules, facts, figures, blah, blah, blah. And then, Matt is faced with the Wave Pull City and County approval process, which, well, we chose the sound clip from Al Pacino in and Justice Therall because having seen what surf park projects come up against when dealing with local jurisdictions, especially when those jurisdictions often have no understanding of surf basins, while Al Pacino yelling seems an appropriate response. However, I could never imagine Matt pulling a Pacino, even when the weight of bureaucracy and blind procedural detail could threaten to do real a decade of his work. Before their grand opening, Revel Surf had to be approved by a handful of agencies that had never been to a surf park. What if your inspectors only want to see a flat bottom on a Wave Pull, but your tech requires modern, surf focus, but the symmetry? Yes, it's definitely time to sweat and welcome to the world of Matt Gunn, co-inventor of Swell MFG, the Wave Pull Tech at the center of Revel Surf in Mesa, Arizona. Matt is typically low-key California, he hails from Ventura. For those of you not from California, that means that even if you're freaking out internally, you never show it. You're cool. If you are stressing, you just blow it off and say whatever man, and your best bro or dude voice. If the mere mention of Maricopa County permitting, not understanding Wave Pull Bithymetry, made Matt want to cry, he did not show it. So we caught up with Matt as Revel surf rolls into the prime summer season to find out how his nerves are doing after having a multi-million dollar project and new technology hinge on just one day of inspection. That's not all we talk about though. In this conversation, we dive into the unique tech of Swell MFG, the local surf culture of Arizona, and building a dedicated community around your project. Matt, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, third time to charm it, I'm sure it won't be in the last time. We won't go into that. But yeah, glad you're here now and we can catch up because you've been super busy. You've had lots of great accomplishments in the past year, two years, five years. Jeez, it's been a while. So yeah. This is your third time on the show. We know a bit about your history coming into the space. But what I found really curious was between your test tank and where you are now, it must have been some differences between the prototype and then what you have now. I wanted to dive into that if you want to geek out on that stuff. Yeah, for it. Yeah, I'm game. Yeah, let's geek out. There's so much of these machines. Right? I mean, if you think about when Henry Ford built the first car, I'm sure he built it and was looked at it. It was like, this is awesome. And I was, you know, wow, I need to improve a lot of things. I think I was Shane Beshen. He sent me, not too long ago, he sent me some pictures of Elon Musk first, SpaceX stuff. Mm-hmm. It was pretty, pretty funny, right? When you look at it and watch it, you're like, oh, wow, that's pretty raw. And then you look at the latest, you know, it looks all good and beautiful and it's all streamlined. So it's, it's a lot to get these machines where you want them. They're big machines and, you know, moving water is a hard thing. Yeah, yeah. And your technology is really interesting because it's, well, while you can push water in several different ways, yours uses levers. Can I refer to them as levers? Yeah. So we refer to them as wave bays and waveboards because it's like, rather than like, there's a lot of waveboards like somewhat similar to ours that work off of a lever, which would be like a hinge point. So it'll be like a hinge and then they flap back and forward. ours is, it's the board, the entire board is moving horizontally through the water. So it simulates ground swell because you get all that energy, that raw energy at the very base of the, of the lagoon floor as well. So rather than it popping down and up and out or flapping from and a surf more of a surface, you know, energy on the surface, ours is just pushing that entire, it's pushing the entire column of water. Okay. Yeah. And we saw that. I got to see the machine up close when I was there late last year and spoke with Adam Sax. It was the day you were having the Maricopa County approved the site. So, well, yeah, it was a fun day. Yeah. I didn't even get to see you when you were here because it was so crazy. Yeah. Yeah. It was, yeah, I was, I think I was in a hotel room with a cold, like a bad flu and I've been traveling and it was, it was kind of, I don't know, maybe we have some karmic thing where we just can't meet. I don't know. You got to figure out how to change that one, Brad. I was like, I found so bad because I couldn't even get even to see you because we had Maricopa County here and they're going through all their final, yeah, there's all their, our final inspections. Yeah. And it was just like all that, it's just a lot, you know, going through that is a lot. Like the cities don't really understand surf parks yet. Yeah. They're used to, you know, old school wave pools for bobbing and swimming and they're just not, they're not, they're not used to the undulations in the pool floor and the bathemetry and surfers and surfboards and like, it just takes them a while to understand it, you know, and yeah, once you start educating them and you teach them and then you share like they, they start to see the vision and then they get really excited about it. Okay. And then that process, I want to keep on this, on this subject because a lot of surf parks and wave pools come, come up against this was there's something that you found to be the, the most difficult, uh, sticking point when explaining your vision to the county who's, you know, if you have an Olympic swimming pool, no problem, you have a set of regulations and you have to meet these requirements. Was there something that was really difficult to get across like one particular thing? That's a really great question. I think there was a couple of things that were a challenge to share and explain, you know, we're also learning how to explain it to them in a good way. That helps them understand. So like a couple of the main things that we dealt with was one was the pool floor, right? Because they're used to in a swimming pool or a Olympic swimming pool. You have certain slopes that you can not exceed, right, for safety. So then what we want to one in 10 slope or one in 12 slope on the pool floors. And we're telling them guys, no, we have like, we have reefs in here, you know, design better, one in 10, one in five, like it, and they change and they vary. We got all kinds of stuff going on in here to make waves break. And so helping them understand that and why that's necessary is a challenge. Because in old wave pools, they just had a sloping floor and that's it. You know, they were very simple. For us to create an A frame, you know, off of this thing to do it like a point break, like there's a lot going on in there. So there's a lot of education in that. Yeah. And that was just in the equipment and the walls and how things need to be situated and set and where surfers are sitting, how many people in the water, you know, there's all that explanation. But I think for us, probably the biggest win in Maricopa County for us, like they're very strict, one of the most strict in the nation. Like a lot of other locations come to Maricopa County for input. And the big one for us with them was our filtration water. Because they're looking at typical pools to, you know, two to five part per million of chlorine. They go back to the old chlorine drain days, you know, and we put very innovative. So our company we work with exceptional water. We put in some very innovative systems into our water and it is essentially fresh water. And so to do that, to do that in a commercial setting has not been done before in Maricopa County and they were very open to working with us and seeing how that works and how that goes. And so we're essentially drinking water, which is awesome. And you get out of our water feeling better than you got in, which is really fantastic. And I think that's the experience. Now, now, did you have a company we had a Friday sessions program with Cloud or H2O and a couple other companies who do water filtration? Did you do it yourself or did you have a third party come in? Yeah, we had, so we work with H2O design. Actually, sad report that our designer passed away just a month ago. So it's been a little sorry to hear that on that really great man Jim Bees. And he designed our system and they connected with exceptional water for our equipment, their local company here. And they're doing some really amazing things with CO2 infusion into water and oxidization and just different ways to sanitize that are good and healthy for people and patrons versus just dumping chemicals into water that kill the things that we don't want in there. So yeah, yeah, it's nice to know that we're kind of moving away from that more chemicals to treat potential difficulties. I know like exceptional water, I get a cough in them almost every week of, hey, we absolutely want to bring by show them the neck rooms, you know, and finally just told them I'm like, guys, just come whenever you want, you're good. This is COVID. Let me know when you're here. But like they've been showing customers all over the country our systems because that's what I do hope is that not only cannot be successful for us, but us having this and within Maricopa County and the understanding of what you can do with water and you can do it better, we'll help others to be able to infuse those in better systems. So the slope of the bottom was a sticking point and then also your water. But that's, you've learned this. Are you going to, will this help you when you go to Texas or is that a totally different county with different set of regulations? You know, all the counties they have their own sets of regulations and requirements. But what's really helpful is it's difficult to see the force through the trees before you get into them, right? And so when we have, now that we have this facility here, it's great because then we can bring, we can bring those authorities to it and show them, right? Here's what we have. Here's what we're doing. It works in one of the most harsh climates in the US. And so I think that is the huge takeaway of having a lagoon and having our wave maker and showing people is so wonderful because we no longer have to tell people and explain and talk. We can bring them out and say, come check it out, but I show you, right? Yeah, that's a game changer. So I'd love to hear since you're going to build another one of these in Texas, the projects another Canon Beach project. And what are you going to do differently? Now that you have all this water-unded bridge, you've earned your bumps and scrapes, what are you going to do differently? Yeah, there's quite the laundry list actually. Yeah, it's, we have, I've got a three-page word document list of items that we're going to improve within the wave maker, update to our, our lining system that we use for the floor. We are going to make, so on a mechanical side, we've got quite a few improvements we're going to make to just continue to get the most out of our out of our wave pool and out of our machinery. Right now we're pushing, you know, 90 to 92% of our maximum stroke on the machine. And so we'll be able to over time here, we'll start to push this one a little bit higher. You know, you push a couple more inches on a weight board and it produces, you know, four to six inches in the wave. So it's like every bit is exponential. Well, so we're working on those things here and then in Texas for redesigning for, you know, right now we have 2.0, right? Our two in here 2.0 will be working on 3.0. We're also going to be making improvements and changes to our reef now that we've learned. So our, like, when you fear is really good, it's really fun, but we're seeing things where we say, gosh, if we change these angles or pitches, or we change these depths, then we're going to improve the experience, improve the waves, and make it a little easier to make waves as well. Well, all those factors start to come into it. Okay, okay, right on. You've got your list, your word doc and you're going to make these changes. That's wonderful. Do you plan to expand beyond Ken and Beach projects or as well, MFG, strictly Rebell surf and Ken and Beach? So yeah, we're, you know, we have a lot of, a lot of thoughts ourselves on that of where we want to take the technology and the wave pools on their own, and that also where we take the entire Ken and Beach facilities and rebel surf. So right now we're building everything as rebel surf and swall manufacturing together. But we've been talking with some other partners as well, potential partners, I should say, of better interested in the technology. And so we're not quite sure exactly where it goes from this point, but we're exploring some different options and different ways to do these things. Okay, well, it's a wonderful position to be in, having one wave pool under your belt and in the midst of constructing another. Yeah, it's really, it's really great. And it's the best is, is it's giving us like an opportunity. Okay, we built everything we had here. Like, look at it as like, when we were designing our skate park at Rebel, I was working with Jason Baldesari, who I just remember I need to invite out here, surf, but sorry, Jason. But the, we were designing the skate park. We kept like tweaking things. Oh, we could do this. We could do that. You know, let's make a little hip here. Let's do that, you know, and it's like infinite changes because it's free flowing and you could continue to change it forever and it would never be perfect, right? And like reefs and wave pools, to near the same where it's never going to be done, you know, it's never perfect. Yeah, I've, you know, I've heard that before. From other designers, it's like, you know, less than on the, on the corporate end of like, this is our product. It's the best. But from the engineering side, the designer side, it's, I don't know, it's part of your, your psyche. Like, you got to keep tweaking things. Yeah, and it's just, you know, you, we built the lagoon here and we're pushing waves. And almost immediately, I was like, gosh, if I had done this differently, it would have been easier to make this way. And so you start logging those things, the infamous word doc, you know, of like, do this next time, right? And having all these points. But like our next version, we're going to, we're going to push like, all right, now at Rebel surf, the wave is 10 to 12 seconds, depending on the way. That's the ride. And it gets you like three to four, three to four hits down the line and, and a closeout on it. So I could really go surfers. They're, are getting like three good turns and then a closeout, banger, which is awesome. And then, you know, other guys that are more average, more myself, you're getting like, you know, two to three really good turns. We're going to push that envelope a little bit in Texas and we're going to push the wave to about 15 seconds is our goal. Okay. So we get a little bit longer of that good pocket, right? So a little bit, a couple more wave days, a little bigger lagoon, and we'll be going that, going that route. Now I've got some really fun reef design changes as well to, to, uh, to, uh, make, allow us to make easier waves that are like long rites and long left that travel across the pools. So like our A-frame is, you know, 10 to 12 seconds in Texas. It'll be A-frame 14, 15 seconds going both ways at the same time. Wow. Which that has been like everybody's everyone loves the A-frame like splitting. There's nothing like splitting a peak with with guys in the water. It's really cool. And so I'm hoping that with our, pushing to about 15 seconds and then, and then with some of the reef design changes to make long rites, long left, that will be like pushing about 20 seconds. I don't know, it's going to be really fun. Okay. Wow. It sounds like some, some great improvements to a wave that already looks, really fun. Let's, let's talk about your, your opening, your open now, your, the public's coming around, you know, not just YouTube stars, but real actual paying customers. And I had the, had the privilege of looking at the site. It's, it's great. the way you have it set up. Adam showed me around. But from the restaurants to all the other periphery, things, the unit wave pool, the skate park, how is business? How are things going right now? You know, it was, we opened it such a wonderful time right in December. Yeah, that's the way they chipped false sometimes. And yeah, yeah, it was hard opening in the middle of winter, but it was also a blessing because it gave us a little time to figure out what the heck we're doing. It's like brand new wave pool, brand new mechanics, brand new wave maker, new staff, new facility. It's a lot going on. And so it was actually really great to just test some things and try some things during that time. And then boy, as soon as the weather warmed up a little bit, when we just were just slammed with everybody local here has just been Jones and Ford waiting for it. It's been excellent. So we've been, we've seen great results. And then we were, we were open initially only to our members. So we have a public and membership cross here. So we initially had all our members in surfing and then the public's like, you know, chewing on their fingernails waiting. And we finally opened that door up in March. And it was, it was awesome. Like the everybody in the local area and those traveling in it been just super stoked and having fun. And I feel like, you know, I revel surf like the way the, it's interesting, Brian, because the way the wave pool interacts with the beach and the restaurant and everything around it. When the waves are on, everybody lingers longer and stays and hangs out. It's their entertainment, right? So I last night we didn't have a session kind of late dinner time. And so a buddy of mine went out and surfed and we were playing with some new barrel waves. And you know, everybody starts watching and just hooting a holler or having a good time. And those, that feeling in that surf, beach culture is like really important to us. Like we feel a real responsibility to make sure that we do that right. And we keep, we keep surf parks authentic and fun, but also like accessible for everybody, right? Like we don't care if you shred or if you're getting on your feet for the first time on a board. You know, come out and have a good time and we're going to coach you and teach you and we're going to have fun together. Yeah. And I was going to ask you about that because a lot of operators I spoken with when the park opens, they have the, it tends to be geared toward a core surf audience, but most of the surf park operators I've spoken with and, you know, management have, have said, you know, your bread and butter is the beginning intermediate crowd. And especially in Arizona, you're not going to have that many hardcore surfers who are going to show up every day. What are you finding since you've opened, opened, revealed surf and how are you adjusting to that? Yeah. So the biggest telling factor is we have four main waves we run right now. So we have, I mean, we're California kids here. So we have San O and we have Malibu and we have Tressels and then we have VLAN. That's the, that's more, you know, Shane's territory. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Those are like our four waves that we're running and it's been, it's been really cool to see what everybody books first. And so what the San O wave is really new. It's a really mellow beginner wave that lets you like, it gives you a lot of time to get to your feet, then it gives you a little section down a line, which is fun for people. They get up and then they get a feel what a real wave feels like. And the Malibu books first, then the Tressels books and then the San O books and then the VLAN books. Oh wow. So it's very telling of, you know, what the majority of our customers are and what they're looking for. Those are the order that we see things book up the quickest. Maybe the San O changes over time. It's still a pretty new wave. It's our second week with that one and it's, it's the sessions are full. So people have a great time and really liking it. So maybe that changes a bit. But we have a lot of, we have a lot of surfers in Arizona that haven't served in quite a while or very infrequent when they can get to the coast or when they are traveling. And so it's a, we have a lot of guys and gals that come out. They're just like just absolutely amped and they're in the water and they're getting back in shape, they're getting the paddle shape and they're having a blast. And it's just like the smiles and the stoke is all time and that is really, really cool. That's awesome. I was going to ask you about that. Have you, do you have enough data yet to really kind of formulate your waves and your wave schedule yet? You opened in December and then I know it's picking up now into high, high season. I'm sure spring break was pretty busy. What are you finding like data wise and how is that affecting how you change your wave offerings? Some schedule. Yeah, it's a, so we're right now we're running six to seven eight hours a day, which actually is just really good for a brand new machine. We're doing really well. We had a few days where we run 11, almost 12 hours a day. So we're, we're really ecstatic about actually how we're doing with our pool and machinery and all of that. You know, it's, it takes a lot to work these machines in and find out where your, where your errors are. So we've been doing good there. We, I mean, right, we can't now that the water especially is warming up, we can't offer enough sessions. We've had everything is, everything's booked out and we book out one to two weeks in advance already. We're seeing a lot of surfers come in from California and come in and have a full of the waves. And we've already seen just talking to a dad and his two sons, grown sons, you know, yesterday they, they came out about a month ago. And then, you know, yesterday I was walking around and boom, they were back, you know, surfing and first time it was just him, right, dad came and played and then he's like, I got my boys, you know, and he came with kids and they did three or four sessions in a couple of days. So that stuff is really cool because the water is also like 55, 56 degrees and Southern Cal right now. So we're like already pushing 76, you know, it's sunny. Yeah. So how, how's that going to, and just curious, how's that going to work when you have like a month of weather over a hundred degrees? How hot does the water get? Is there, is there a point where it can't get any hotter or? You know, in Phoenix, I don't know if we can ever say it can't get any hotter because it always tends to find a way. Uh-huh. We'll be, our, what's really cool is our well that we, that we replenish our water with. That water comes out at about 66 degrees. So we get more evaporation in the summer and we'll be putting in more fresh cold water, which I think will help quite a bit. Um, so control our water temperature and then also the, the waves and the air ratio. As long as you're moving water and you're aerating it, um, it keeps that uh, stagnant heat from just soaking up. Um, but I mean, we'll definitely be tropical, you know, we're tropical water here in the summer. 85, 85 plus degrees. Um, it's pretty wild like in the winter, we got down to 46. That was our coldest day. We got down to 46 and we actually had ice on the, uh, on the beach entry area, that little shallow area. We had some ice on, on there. Um, but despite, you know, we were surfing all day and it was full. Um, we were in, uh, yeah, just booty, you know, four, three years because you're moving a lot so you don't have to go up more than like a four, three suit, but we have booties gloves and, uh, and not really so much hoods unless the weather was cold too. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it gets so cold at the desert. Uh, at night time in the winter, it's a pretty amazing. Yeah. Like surfing in the day and that was pretty dang comfortable. It just, it's a lot to suit it all up to get out there. But, um, it was very comfortable with the sun on your back. Yeah. But at night, those are, yeah, it was pretty frigid if you were surfing at night. In the winter time. All right. So what, um, going into the high season, what are we looking at? You mentioned you book out about a week in advance at the moment. What about when it's summer? Do you see like your clientele being, uh, you know, high school kids? Do you see it being like the, the dad bringing his sons on a, you know, surf trip to the desert? Yeah. I think you're, who are your customers? Guys, there's, I mean, it's, there's so many customers, Brian, and then they're all so different, right? We have a lot of beginners. here, a local and travelers that are coming in. We have a lot of tourists tourism here in the Phoenix area. If you think of the Grand Canyon and, you know, golf and all of those things that go on here, we have a lot of tourism. So we see a lot of first-timers that come out and they're booking up our Learn to Surf in the Whitewater and we do dry land coaching and training and pushing them into waves and those sessions are filling up. So we're working on adding a lot more of that for May. And then our surf sessions, we're seeing, we're seeing really everything. You know, we have our local membership population that's coming out multiple times a week. Spending a lot of time at the park as well, just enjoying the, enjoying the facility. And then we're starting to see a lot of people traveling in, surfers traveling in. Booking private sessions as well on that. You know, like we've been seeing, I was funny, I was out. I was a, for Easter, I was in, I was in San Clemente. We were surfing down at lowers. And like I paddle out and like, yeah, his other dude paddles out and he looked at each other and I'm like, oh, hey, you know, he was just in the pool like a week later, a week earlier. So that's, that's been really cool. Actually, we both looked at each other. It was kind of crappy that day. Yeah. It looks at me. He's like, you wish you were still in Phoenix right now. I was like, yeah, check. Yeah. Oh, it was pretty funny. Oh, that's right. And then, um, okay. So what, going into this season, you're working at the park. I mean, you've got the space now at Revelle Surf, based Arizona. And then you've got things going on in Texas for the new development. Where is your energy right now? Where are you focusing? So my energy right now is split fairly split between working on our, our wave maker 3.0 and the reef structure and that for kicking off the project in Texas. So about split between there and then working on our programming and marketing efforts at Rebel here in Mesa and general operations working with our team. So I split up fairly even between that right now. Different times heavier on one than the other. Okay. And then you have, you have your partner, John. So yeah, John Bushy. And we have an additional engineer, Adam, who's also working on our wave making equipment now as well. So that's great. And then we've got a great support team that's maintaining and managing and they bring to me a lot of, hey, I'm seeing this, I'm seeing that. And then we, that goes into the list, right? Goes into your three page word document. Yeah, yeah, which will probably be four. Let's have I get the taxes. You must that you're using 10 point font, I think. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, absolutely. No double spaces. No, no, no, no double spaces and single lines. Yeah. Okay, right on. So I'd like to close out with just asking this whole adventure going from, you know, zero to, to surfing. Like what, what sticks with you in that? Like, oh my god, I did it. Or is it more like, okay, I've got this down. I'm going to do more things. How, what's your overall feel for this process? Where you are now? Yeah, it's a, it's a really great question. And there's like, there's so much energy and feeling. I mean, I've had days out here where I'm greeting ear to ear and days where I'm in my car and I'm just shedding tears, you know, like this is really, really hard. Yeah. And it's like, but I think the, the biggest takeaway is your team. It's the support structure that we have here within our teams from all of our partners, our, our operations team, our GM and managers at Revel, our crew that's maintaining the wave maker. I mean, I'm sitting in my office right now next to it and I see my guys out there cranking away on stuff, right? And there's, there's nothing better than those that you are on the journey with and you work with because without all, without all of them in their respective areas, it doesn't happen. It doesn't work. And I, that was something I, I definitely grossly underestimated early on in this process where it's like, oh, we can do this. We got this. We got, you know, we can handle and, and that's where the tears come from, you know, days where you're putting in or teen hours, you've 15 hours, you're working all night, you know, and learning that that's not sustainable, right? And you have to create that team right? You have to, you have to, you have to increase that. If you have the right people, you can do anything. Yeah. That's great. That's so great to hear that you have a great team together and that through teamwork, you're, you're able to make this happen and expand and improve on what you have and refine what's already there. It's, that's great. Yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, it's all about the people along the way. Let's see, I look at it. Yeah. Yeah. That's the, it's, it's good to hear that because it is such an important factor in any project. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, we, we're sitting back here behind the machine. We can see the beach. We can see everything and you hear all the music and everyone having fun and playing and it's like, that just fuels you. Yeah. Yeah. It's fuel you where it's like, okay, let's, let's keep, let's keep building, let's keep going, let's keep improving. Watching everybody enjoy what we've created is, is true, blessed. It's pretty amazing. Right. Right on. And yeah, and that just must feel so great to say. See someone have fun and go, oh, yeah, I built that. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's great. We get so many, guys, guys come up to us all the time here when we're walking around and, and they just like, they just want to shake your hand, like, give you high five and they're just, look at you in the eye and just like, thank you so much, right? Like, this is amazing, you know, and I mean, that's, that's all you need right there, right? Keep you going. Yeah. It's so, it's so great to hear that you're in a, in a space to really see that and feel it. That's a wonderful map. Yeah. And not to mention, it's really fun to have all the creative pros out here and we get to play with all those guys. And that's fun. The other day we were winging into waves and mine was my first ones were not so successful. But like we had all the catch serve crew out. That's guys who are just so fun and, yeah, teaching us all kinds of new things. And so we have, we have a lot of fun out here too and everyone comes out. It's really fun. Okay. Right on. Yeah, how can you not have fun surfing? Well, maybe you're not right. That's so true. So true. That's so good. Okay. Right on, Matt. Thank you so much for taking time out and, and sitting down and bringing this up to speed on swell MFG and rebel surf at the Canon Beach development. Yeah. Thank you, Brian. So pleasure to be on with you always. And yeah, thanks for, thanks for the time and, and also waiting for me to get here. So, no worries. No worries. That's for it. Yeah. [Music]